Listen
to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is
old. Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.
The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; he who fathers a wise son
will be glad in him. Let your father and mother be glad; let her who bore you
rejoice. My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways. (Proverbs 23:22–26 ESV)
On Father’s Day, attention is normally given to the dad. The
family is one of the greatest rewards a man can have, yet the child-raising
years go by very quickly. In fact, life goes by quickly.
I once read, “Theoreticians estimate that the average person
accomplishes only 10 percent of his or her promise. They hear and see only 10
percent of the music and poetry in the universe. They smell only a tenth of the
world’s fragrance and tastes only a tenth of the deliciousness of being alive. They
are only 10 percent open to their emotions – to tenderness, to wonder and awe. Their
mind embraces only a small part of the thoughts, reflections, and understanding
of which they are capable. Their heart is only 10 percent alive with love. They
will die without ever having really lived and really loved. To me, this is the
most frightening of all possibilities. I would really hate to think that you or
I might die without having really lived and really loved.”
The family is one of those things
that give us a sense of life and love.
Mary, a teenage girl, wrote: “A
father is someone who spends time with you and takes you on vacation and talks
to you about the world and life in general. A father is someone who has fun
with you. A father is loyal. A father is honest. A father is trustworthy. A
father is a leader. A father is someone who goes through a lot of pain and
sorrow, but he is still a father. A father is not someone who runs away from
life. He is there to cope and work things out. A father is not a coward. A
father is love.”
Being a dad is not easy. A
question worth considering is, in all the complexities of fathering, what are
the essentials? What does a child need most from a dad? May I suggest these
three essentials.
The
essential of time
People occasionally attempt to
make a distinction between “quality time” and “quantity time”, a modern-day
myth. A pop-culture teaching that came out of the ’70s claimed parents could
give their kids moments here and there as long as it was “quality time.” The reality,
however, reveals that children do not know the difference between time and
quality time. Kids do not make such divisions; they simply value the time they
have with their parents. Life is time-consuming and time is the very crucible
of fathering. There is no substitute for the wonder of time.
In metropolitan areas, families often
live great distances from their employment to buy a new or newer home. Yet to
have what is promoted as a new and less costly home requires more travel time
to work. Instead of being apart 8 ½ to 9 hours a day, the family is now
separated 11 to 12 hours a day. No house is worth large amounts of time away
from each other, especially when it comes to having evening meals together.
One study showed there is more
happening at family mealtimes than just eating. High School students who
interact with their families at dinner are more likely to spend time studying,
be employed part-time, and participate in athletics.
Paul Krouse, publisher of Who’s
Who Among American High School Students wrote, “A family that eats dinner
together is doing a lot more than eating.” Surveys show: 1) Students who never
eat dinner together with their families are three times less likely to have a
happy and close home life than those who regularly eat dinner with family; 2)
High School students who rarely or never eat dinner together with their
families are almost four times as likely to have engaged in sex (67%) than
those who regularly eat dinner as a family (17%).
How does your use of time match up
with your values and priorities? Do this little reflection sometime soon: On
the left-side of a page write down all your priorities; on the right-side list
your usage of time. If you are an average person, the left side and the right
side are in opposite proportion. What most people say they value the
most is usually what they commit the least time to.
In a classic book called, When
I Relax, I Feel Guilty the author claims that by the age of thirty-five we
have only five hundred days left to
live. If you live until age seventy, in the next thirty-five years you will
have to spend a great deal of time sleeping, working, eating, and traveling. You
will also have to tend to personal matters, such as hygiene, and maintaining
good health. There will be the odd chores and the myriad of miscellaneous time-stealers
that often come in the form of emergencies. After taking care of all the
“necessary” things, you will have roughly the equivalent of five hundred days
to spend as you wish. In this context, you are a father for a truly short time.
Take time to stop, look, and
listen. Stop means time to be a dad. To just hug and hold your family. Stop to realize what a wonderful mess your
home is. Look means to be available, to be close to your kids. See
them for who they are amid their dreams, hopes, and frustrations. Listen
means to close the gap. The word communication comes from the
Latin word “communus” whose root meaning is “having something in common” – common
ground, or closing the gap, is found by listening.
Communications Consultants
Associated states we spend 80 percent of our waking hours trying to
communicate with one another. About 45 percent of communicating time is
spent listening.
Schools teach how to write,
which we use only 9 percent of the time; how to read, which we use only
10 percent of the time; how to speak, which we use 30 percent of the
time. Yet rarely are people taught to be good listeners, something we do
45 percent of the time.
Children want attention more than
anything else. This is one reason why many go through various antics; they are
trying to get you to stop, look, and listen. Time is an essential part of being
a dad.
The
essential of consistency
Consistency is sometimes described
as “perseverance that is in balance.” We persevere at something we love to do. We
persevere at something we deeply care about. In the long run, a dad is someone
who hangs in there despite the setbacks.
The key to being consistent is by
recognizing the faithfulness of God in your life. No matter how poorly you may
think you are as a parent, nobody can do a better job of being you than you
can. When you live out your life with faith in God, instead of trying to live
out what others expect from you, you will be consistent.
Becoming consistent involves four
things: Live for Jesus – Scriptures disclose that He is the same
yesterday, today, and forever; you will be consistent when you reflect His
image. Pray without ceasing – be in constant communication with the
never-changing God. Be led by the Holy Spirit – He is the Helper; daily
dependence upon Him brings consistency. Forget yourself – be more
concerned about the will of God than your reputation; be more concerned about
your family than your prominence.
Consistency is a balanced kind of
perseverance. It is a blend of courage and patience in your home. Consistency
is being a one-of-a-kind father – it is being real and the best father you can
be.
The
essential of enthusiasm
Enthusiasm can be elusive. Teenagers,
especially in the summer, often say, “I’m bored.” Boredom and apathy have
become communicable diseases in society. Dads counter these ills in their
children by fathering with enthusiasm.
There is a way for a dad to know
if he is ailing from these diseases of boredom and apathy, called, “The
Handy-Dandy Excuse List for Dads”. Think about your regular, everyday
challenges, responsibilities, and involvements. As you think, check one of the six
responses that seem appropriate to fathering: (1) Don’t have time.
(2) Don’t have time. (3) Don’t have time. (4) Never trained to do it. (5) Don’t
know what to do. (6) I don’t care.
“Don’t have time” was repeated
three times because that is the most common excuse given for failing to do what
should be done. The truth is that we all do what we really want to do. If we
want to make time for something, we can and will.
The most dangerous excuse on the
list is the last one, “I don’t care.” If you check “I don’t care” the game is
over. Once enthusiasm dissolves, everything else begins to erode and slip away.
Indifference stifles all family relationships and boredom soon abounds. If
boredom and apathy are setting in, you need to heed the call given to the church
at Ephesus: “Repent and go back to what you did at first.” (Revelation 2:5)
Enthusiasm comes from the Greek
root “entheos” meaning “God dwells within us.” Real enthusiasm occurs when we have
God in us through His Son Jesus. An enthusiastic father is contagious to the
whole family.
Final
thought
Fathers are not called to always
be in complete control of life situations; dads are called to act, to love, and
to suffer when necessary. The stakes are high, the wounds can be deep and painful,
but the prize is worth it. Elbert Hubbard stated it well: “In the end, God will
not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas but scars.”
The San Francisco Chronicle had an
article entitled, “Businessmen say life’s ‘empty.’” A study of 4,126 male
business executives reveals widespread dissatisfaction with the corporate
experience. Forty-eight percent of
all middle-managers said that despite years spent striving to achieve their
professional goals, their lives seemed “empty and meaningless.” Sixty-eight percent of senior-executives
said that they had neglected their family lives to pursue professional goals
and half said they would spend less time working and more time with their wives
and children if they could start over again. The question that men are asking
today is: What am I doing all this for? Before, the payoff was security and
long-term employment. But corporations do not return loyalty as they used to,
and men today are saying they do not see the investment as being worth it.
Dads, are time, consistency, and
enthusiasm a part of your parenting? They are the things a child needs in you. These
essentials help prevent you from developing an empty feeling as you
journey through life.
